Estuary - Washington

Had a reservation yesterday. Wasn’t seated until 45 mins past reservation time. Waited another 15 mins for drink orders to be taken. Food was delicious but service was very poor.

I am not one to do any review of any kind, good or bad, however, I believe Estuary deserves a few moments of my time. We had family in town and had dinner there on Saturday night. From the host stand to the wait staff to the sommelier the service was impeccable. We felt appreciated and the experience was lovely. We are wine drinkers, and the wine list was amazing. Of course, the food was fantastic and overall, we had zero complaints. Please keep it up and you will remain in my arsenal of amazing DC restaurants.

The Estuary is beautiful. The ambience is a perfect 10. We went on New Year's Eve and the jazz band was incredible. The only negative comment about the space is the location of the bathrooms is far from the restaurant and hard to find. Thankfully, staff was available to help navigate. The service could be improved. The valet was convenient but the workers asked if we were checking in and when we said “no,” they didn't tell us that we had to valid our parking pass at the restaurant. The cost of valet is $20 without validation and $14 with validation. As a result, we had to go back up the elevator to the hostess stand to validate before leaving. Also, the restaurant staff could have asked us for parking validation before leaving. The server at our table could also improve. He didn't know how the market fish was prepared and failed to tell us that they were out of the New York Strip so two of the people in our party had to reorder on the fly. He also could have made food recommendations and offered bread service before the meal. The food was not great. The food was the biggest disappointment of the evening. The hush puppy appetizer was not good because it was a regular hush puppy with a sauce. You could get this anywhere. The hush puppy should not be on the menu at a fine dining place like Estuary. We ordered it because we thought it'd be fancy but it's not. The smoked fish spread came with lovely pita chips but the spread was flavorless and came with an excess of toast. The portion of spread should be larger and have more smoke flavor. For entrees, we enjoyed the seafood carbonara. It came with orange fish eggs on top (like the kind that comes on a California roll at a sushi restaurant) called tobiko. It was too large a spoonful so it cheapened the appeal of the dish because tobiko is associated with cheap sushi. When the tobiko came on top of the Market Fish dish I was surprised. The amount of tobiko was too much and unappetizing.

Excellent meal for 4 on new year's eve with the only down side being the service. There was some apparent confusion on who our waiter was and i had to ask the floor manager after a wait of approx. 20 minutes. the meal and service during the meal was excellent but, unfortunately, the end of the meal was a waiter trade-off and we had to ask for our final check after another wait of 20-25 minutes. Much more pleasant to wait after the meal, but still far too long.

Beautiful views and ambience. But the lack of salt on the NY sirloin and duck (also overcooked) and the apple crumble left a lot to be desired especially given the cost of the meal. Impeccable service.